Intelligence Article

Recent Research Links Anxiety with Higher IQ

            A study that was done in Lakehead University in Canada showed that people who have anxiety, even the slightest bit of it, tend to score higher on IQ tests than people who do not worry at all.

            In Canada, one hundred students were surveyed. Based off of their answers, the survey would say if they had a lot of anxiety or not. From that, they also looked at their IQ test scores and the ones who had high scores also had a lot of anxiety, where as the ones who had low test scores had little to no anxiety.

            Another study done by Israeli psychologists found the same results from relating anxiety to intelligence. Multiple students with high and low IQs were told to evaluate artwork that would be presented to them from a software program. When the students each opened up the program they also activated a terrible computer virus which they had to go find tech support right away. As they each left, their behaviors were observed when they went to find support. They had different “obstacles” on the way, like someone stopping to ask them to take a survey, someone dropping a large stack of papers in front of them, ect. From observing them, they noticed that the ones who had the greatest anxiety while going through the “obstacles” also had the highest IQs. The same psychologists did another study earlier and found that students with higher IQs were also more likely to detect potential dangers, like the smell of smoke.

            There has also been studies done at the National Institute of Health through MRI scans to find any correlation between anxiety and intelligence. What they found is that people with high IQs and anxiety both had a missing part of white matter in their brain, which probably meant that anxiety and intelligence developed together as humans evolved.

            Some of these studies have shown that when intelligence and anxiety are both present, people stay away from situations that put them at risk too. These studies don’t support that if you don’t have anxiety you aren’t intelligent, but the result of all of the studies show that people who have high anxiety do tend to have higher IQs.

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/05/19/recent-research-links-anxiety-with-higher-iq/